TC Electronic Dark Matter Distortion

TC ELECTRONIC DARK MATTER DISTORTION
By Adam Ironside

The Dark Matter Distortion is part of the new Tone Print series of effects pedals. Unlike most of the other pedals in this line however this is NOT a digital effect, and therefore also does not have the new toneprint technology.

It is worth noting that I wrote this review and the one for the Mojo Mojo Overdrive in the same short time period, so there may be some overlap in ideas and descriptions etc, but I have done my best to keep the two as separate as possible, as if I had tried them months apart.

Features

There seems like a lot going on here for a dirt box, but it is actually pretty simple and intuitive and should come as no surprise nowadays where it seems stompboxes are becoming more and more complex. Anyway, this thing is solid! Like, rock hard, really small and dense but surprisingly not at all heavy. One thing that is really cool is TC’s new battery access design on the back of the pedal, just one simple to turn, single screw that removes the entire back of the pedal, certainly a time saver for those who use batteries. It also features an easy-to-see, ultrabright red LED.

The controls then:

Gain – Simple enough, the gain setting.

Level – Again easy, the volume. It seems to have plenty of boost available so if the gain is not quite enough (and we’ll get to that later) you can always push the volume up too to force your amp into some natural drive on top of the dirt coming from the pedal.

Bass – The low end of the two band EQ.

Treble – And the high end. Plenty of cut and boost available on both and the knobs have a sort of centre detent that locks the pot slightly at 12 o clock. Whether this removes the tone circuitry from the signal path I’m not sure, but this is where the tone settings seem most transparent.

Voice- A simple, two-way switch that alters the bass response. In the up position there is a lot more emphasis on the low end, quite fat bass, in the downwards position the bass seems cut a little and perhaps a presence area boost is also employed.

Sounds

It would be a cold day in hell before I plugged in a pedal and played on the clean channel. This is how I test drive every single pedal I get, regardless of type, it should sound good on a clean channel. Also, this being a distortion pedal designed to act almost like another amp channel so it is best run it into a clean channel.

So, with everything at twelve, bang! Immediate AC/DC style crunch; chunky and warm without being muddy or too dirty. Push the treble up a little and you get extra crunch with a touch of glass, but not too bright; A really great, classic sounding rock rhythm tone. During the course of my rocking out I discovered that something felt weird about this pedal. It didn’t FEEL quite right under my fingers, it certainly didn’t feel like I was playing through a pedal, but it didn’t quite feel like going direct into the amp either. I did a little digging and found the original press release for these pedals and all was revealed: ‘By ramping up the voltage to more than 3-4 times the amount of typical drive pedals, a dramatic increase in terms of headroom and dynamics has been achieved.’ That is why it felt weird! I’m used to pedals running at around nine volts and occasionally eighteen volts but never this high. That weird feeling was touch-responsiveness and dynamic range that I am just not used to. The only pedal that comes close to this is the TC Mojo Mojo overdrive and the Bearfoot FX Honey Bee OD. If you pick lightly you get a bit of breakup, if you pick really hard or put a heavy compressor in front you get the full effect. This was obviously done to emulate the way a valve amp feels under your fingers, and I have to say it is fairly close!

So, where were we? Ah yea, rocking sounds! So my first instinct was to see how much gain is available and so I maxxed it out. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed. With a name like ‘Dark Matter Distortion’ I was expecting this to be able to cover the grounds that some modern players are after, HEAVY gain. Truth be told it never gets THAT wild. I mean, there is more than enough gain for my purposes but those into modern era heavy metal or extreme music might find this falls a little short of the mark. Fortunately for those people it takes a boost quite well, I boosted this with several pedals including the Mojo Mojo Overdrive, Bob Burt Clean Boost and Valvette Custom Drive, but I never quite found a modern metal tone amongst them, at least not a mega tight one that could replace my amp. Still, at full gain this pedal is very musical, reactive and behaves well. It is more than capable of covering the gamut of eighties rock sounds which would make this ideal for the pub-rock covers guitarist.

The EQ controls are pretty responsive too. With the gain maxxed the bass gets a little heavy but this can be corrected by reducing it slightly, upping the treble a touch or flicking the switch to the downwards position. In this position however I didn’t really find the thump that I like and that I normally associate with rhythm tones so it did not remain there long.

I could go on to describe how the pedal sounds pushing an already driven amp into more gain, but in all honesty I didn’t think the Dark Matter excelled at this job, but then it wasn’t designed to. Distortion pedals are generally designed to replace the dirt channel on your amp, or add one if you’re running a clean only amp. Instead, I’ll talk about something that this pedal does fantastically…

Lead sounds! I’ve never really associated distortion pedals with lead sounds, at least not in my application anyway, but man, this changed my mind! With the gain set at about three o clock, the low end boosted slightly and the treble in neutral this pedal just sings! It really does. It was hard to describe how I felt when I first heard this sound, I guess surprised would be the closest I can come to an explanation. I was using the Dark Matter during one of my song-writing sessions and found this to be just the perfect lead sound for a progressive metal track I was working on at the time. It is really open and sustains exceptionally. Flicking the voice switch down over impressed me again! The sound really tightened up (thanks to the removal of some low end) and I can imagine this working perfectly in a band situation, helping you cut through the mix and leaving the flabby low end behind. Also impressive is the pick attack and picking definition that you get with this pedal, perfect for the alternate pickers or shredders of this world.

I was also very impressed by the way you can use the Dark Matter as an overdrive or boost pedal. With my amp in lead mode I kicked in the Dark Matter (with the gain set at about ten o clock) and my tone just got…bigger. My sound was suddenly wider and richer, with a lot of definition and depth.

Overall

There is a LOT more to say about the Dark Matter, I’ve only scratched the surface with this review. There is a lot it can do and a lot it can’t do. For example, it can provide a wide range of distorted tones covering ground from the sixties through to the eighties, provide anything from a bluesy, SRV-like crunchy lead tone, to a smooth, singing, sustained sound full of definition not too dissimilar to the John Petrucci’s of this world (with the right delays and reverbs of course) and even act as a dirty boost to push your amp a little harder. What it won’t give you is the ultra-modern, tight, ‘djenty’ sounds of bands like Meshuggah or Periphery, but then that would be asking quite a lot from a pedal alone. It is also worth mentioning that those who like to ‘set and forget’ would find this pedal works great by keeping the gain up high and using your guitars volume control to change the amount of distortion and dirt you get, very responsive in this department.

The Voice switch is a good idea but ultimately I felt it didn’t always work as well as I had hoped and I found myself going back the two band EQ and even my amp EQ to hone the sound I wanted, without needing to use the Voice switch, and getting better results.

There is a lot of talk around the internet about comparing this to a Suhr Riot pedal. Well, I haven’t actually tried the Suhr Riot yet but the two seem to cover similar tonal grounds but in a different way. It would be interesting to do a side by side comparison.

Rating

8.9 – The Dark Matter is a very different feeling pedal to most I have tried but not all that different sounding. I was thoroughly impressed by the majority of sounds that the Dark Matter offered but I think it could have done with just a little bit of extra gain. What also would be interesting is a voltage selector of some kind, similar to the ones that occurring more and more on valve amps, that allows the pedal circuitry to be run anywhere between 9 volts and whatever its maximum is. At 9 volts the sound would probably be a lot more compressed and a lot smoother, less open, and provide an even sweeter lead sound. Food for thought there.

In retrospect I might be being a little harsh considering this pedal costs little more than £100 (£110 I believe the RRP is) and in that case it outperforms quite a lot of the other pedals in its price range but it still left me wanting just a LITTLE bit more. Definitely recommended however and to me it would be worth keeping just for that one lead sound that made me grin like a Cheshire cat.